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@steve_eOn Saturday morning I woke up early thinking about complexity. I blame this on a couple of recent online travel consultancy jobs I’ve done and also on my experiences with travel companies I’ve worked for in the past who were either undergoing a change of reservation system or building their own back-end and packaging systems. Selling travel online is just about as complex as it gets. However, that complexity doesn’t need to be displayed to your users or customers and in fact you should do everything you can to avoid that.
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On complexity in online travel
Posted in Online Travel
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Will Google+ be gamed by SEO’s?
I’ve yet to see anyone get particularly excited about the launch of Google+ from an SEO perspective but believe me they will… I’ve been wondering if Google+ will feed into the organic search results and how that would work. Looking at some of the guidelines and help files shows that Google+ updates ‘may’ be fed into organic results and Google have put terms in their content policy to cover SEO’s trying to game this.
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From a web of links, to a web of likes, to a web of sentiment
I was drawn to a tweet by Steve Rubel, from Edelman Digital, earlier: Continue reading
Web teams need to share knowledge to be most effective
I’ve held senior roles and run projects at major brands where I’ve been responsible for a large part of a web or ecommerce strategy and as a result responsible for a lot of the staff who make that strategy come to life. Every time I’ve taken on a new role or project at a large organisation I’ve been disappointed to see the lack of knowledge sharing that goes on both within the web team and between departments like tech, marketing and web.
It pains me every time I meet a web designer or developer who has no appreciation of how their work can affect a sites SEO, or a marketer who has no appreciation of how important content is and how users like to consume content online or a content producer with no appreciation of how users like to search on Google and how content affects your ranking.
I’m not saying that your designers should be SEO experts, far from it, I just believe that your website would be more effective if the people in charge of certain disciplines had an appreciation and understanding of how that discpline affects and complements the others. This goes for agencies too; personally I wouldn’t hire an SEO agency who didn’t at least understand the relationship between SEO and content and code and how getting all of them right is (generally) going to deliver better results for the business than just getting one of them right (or performing all three activities in total isolation).
In my experience, brands with internal web teams benefit more if there is a mutual understanding of what each area does and how they can impact each other. This can foster better relationships, improve personal development opportunities for staff and result in better results and ROI from all of your web activities. Let your teams share knowledge, present to each other what it is they do and why they need help and understanding from other disciplines and try to encourage a passion for the wider web and digital world in general (believe me, enthused staff are happy and productive staff).
Once you foster a culture of learning and sharing in your organisation you will soon begin to see the benefits. Nothing is more pleasing than seeing developer staff get up from their seats and head down to marketing because they have an idea that will improve a social media campaign landing page or for a content writer to go and talk to your search staff before writing copy for some new pages.
Building and managing websites requires ongoing input and understanding from all disciplines otherwise your website will never perform as well as it could have.
Posted in Development & Code
Tagged content strategy, design, management, seo, web development
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Operation Window Seat
Someone I follow tweeted a link to the Notcot.com design & aesthetics blog which showed their Operation Window Seat series of posts containing photos taken from the window of planes. I love photos which show features of the earth from above so thought I’d dig around in my Flickr sets to see what I could find from my collections.
I could only find two decent shots which were both taken over Siberia en route to Japan (on separate trips). That could be something to do with the amazing scenery and frozen landscape but more likely it’s because I get incredibly bored on longhaul flights. Enjoy!
The Siberian landscape is incredible particularly the snaking, winding frozen rivers
Guess the airline? 
Why you (as a brand) need a strong and effective online presence
I’m always amazed by the way some brands and even some whole industries still seem to ignore the web as a viable channel for communication, content, sales, PR or even advertising. What does it take to persuade them that they can’t just ignore the online medium and at the very least they need to take steps to engage with their online audience (because they’ll have an online audience even if they haven’t got a website)? So I like to highlight statistics that will help to make this clear. The three charts below are from FEED: The 2009 Razorfish Digital Brand Experience Report. It’s a great report produced by a great agency and in my opinion these stats are very persuasive!
So, how a user experiences your brand online can have positive or negative bearings on how they feel about you. This is going on even if you don’t have a website, don’t do social media or don’t actively do any online PR or advertising. Your potential customers are still having experiences that are linked to your brand in their own conversations and online journey whether you are actively involved or not. Wouldn’t it be better to establish your own presence so you can increase the positive sentiment and work to address the negative?
Now the above is a powerful chart! If 97% of web users could have their purchase decisions positively (or negatively) influenced by your online presence doesn’t that make it something worth investing in?
Again, the above is hugely powerful. If an online experience can turn someone into a new customer then why aren’t you working your digital assets to your advantage?
As I said I aim this at those industries and brands who seem to lag behind the adoption curve when it comes to the web (I’m thinking of a lot of the financial services industry, a surprising amount of the FMCG sector and some service industries). The general message here is that you have a lot to gain by improving your presence on the internet, making it easy to interact with, useful to those you’re trying to attract and engaging so people want to interact.
Suggest you read the report which is available online here.
Posted in Brands & Branding
Tagged brand usability, customer, customer experience, social usability, user experience
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Financial markets and social media: adapt to adopt
Social media and social networks are a part of our daily lives. They’ve now been accepted as more than just entertainment. It’s taken a while but the world of business has now realised that it can no longer ignore them (or the web) as a channel of communication to reach its customers and interact with them. Businesses are all rushing to find a way to utilise Twitter and Facebook, some are doing it well others are failing, but most industries are at least trying. One industry who’s finding it more difficult though is financial services.
Financial services companies such as banks, analysts, brokers, traders and insurers all have a duty under various laws to keep copies of all communications with clients, customers and counterparties (particularly when it comes to discussions giving advice). This paper trail is required to ensure there’s no bias, insider dealing, dodgy advice or plain lying going on. The problem is, social networks like Twitter and Facebook don’t allow these companies to archive and store their communications making it very difficult for them to become meaningfully involved in actual two-way conversations.
This is a recognised issue now in the industry and even regulators recognise the potential benefits of being able to properly engage online. FINRA (the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority) in the U.S. has set up a Social Networking Task Force (discussed at their annual meeting recently) to explore how regulation can embrace these of technological advancements rather than hinder their adoption.
Now, while I can understand the need for due diligence, archiving, transparency and regulation around financial services, surely the industry needs to grow up and realise it’s time to ease these shackles and allow the conversation to flow. The conversation is happening anyway; in phone calls, cafes, restaurants and bars financial industry execs meet with clients, colleagues and competitors and discuss exactly the kind of issues that generally should be on the record (this has been happening for ever). At least if these types of conversations happen online they will be archived by Google if nothing else. Surely the regulators need to accept that their industry will be dragged kicking and screaming into the sociable world of online media whether they like it or not? Time to adapt in order to adopt modern methods of social business communication! The benefits of allowing the conversation to happen far outweigh the negatives.
Of course the other way this could play out is that Twitter and Facebook provide a way for these types of companies to engage through special accounts which allow for archiving and provide regulatory compliance. Personally I don’t think that would be a good thing as it would place restrictions on their interactions and mould financial services use of social media rather than letting it grow and adapt organically. I’ve had many conversations with people from financial services on just this topic and they agree, they don’t want to be restricted and want to use social media as any other business would.
Posted in Social Media
Tagged financial market, financial services, insurance, reinsurance, social media
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Link madness; news will eat itself through poor UX
What’s that? Traditional news media is having a tough time? So everyone keeps saying and yet still (and this happens often) information emerges which seems to demonstrate that they are trying as hard as they can to destroy themselves with very little help from anyone else.
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Posted in User Experience & Usability
Tagged media, news, newspaper, usability, user experience
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Rules of engagement (my personal social media policy)
I got inspired to write my own personal social media policy after reading various brands policies via this link on the Social Media Governance site (thanks to @jasonryan for sharing it on Twitter). Companies and brands feel the need to publicise the rules they expect their employees to follow when they use social media, or in reality if they choose to publish anything online. I see the benefits of having a policy and trying to keep some level of coherence in the conversations your brands ambassadors (yes, your employees are brand ambassadors), although most seem to be rules rather than guidelines and don’t actually encourage conversation at all. Social media policies or guidelines should encourage participation and conversation and be there to ensure brand values are upheld and continuity is upheld.
Anyway, this is a work in progress so liable to change and will end up on my ‘about’ page soon.
- I will engage
On Twitter, my blogs, by commenting on other blogs, on Facebook (although not that often anymore), on forums and anywhere else I feel the need, I will engage and converse with those I find interesting, I choose to engage with, who want to listen and want to converse with me. - I will share
On Delicious, Flickr, Digg, Reddit, Twitter, Dopplr (where I am at least as fast as a duck) and many more places. I like to share stuff I find interesting and would love it if you share your interesting stuff with me too. Discovering other peoples interesting content is really important and a great way to find new information. - I will tell the truth
Everything you read/hear from me will be the truth, at least it will be the truth to me at the time I say it, should it become less true as facts emerge please don’t blame me I was only acting on the information at hand. At times I may say something that isn’t strictly true; usually, and if you are so skilled, you will be able to spot this as sarcasm or an attempt at humour. - I will not feed the trolls
Spam, troll comments, purveyors of hate and negativity; I will ignore and most likely delete you where possible. - It’s my opinion
No one elses. Not my clients, my employers, nor my friends, nor my families. This is me, and you get the option to take me or leave me. If at any time I do broadcast someone else’s opinion I will be sure to let you know. - I will debate
At times I may disagree with you. That’s healthy, don’t be upset, I expect you’ll agree or disagree with something I write at some point too. Discussion and debate is good! - I might follow you
If I find you particularly interesting I might elect to follow you around, subscribe to your feeds, check out the stuff you share or connect with you on professional networks. Don’t panic, I’m not a stalker it’s a compliment! - If you follow me
Please play nicely. I welcome all to follow me but please try to ensure we have at least something in common, it could be pretty futile trying to converse with me otherwise. This point goes mainly to brands and sales people; don’t spam me its a conversation I’m looking for not a barrage of brand heavy waffle or a sales pitch. - I might unfollow you
Don’t get offended. Chances are that you either haven’t got enough in common with my interests or that I can’t take the volume of content you produce. If you think neither of these is the case and you don’t spot something in number 8 that sets alarm bells ringing then try talking to me, perhaps I missed something or you never tried to really connect… - I may bore you
I reserve the right to be boring and mundane at times and there’s a good possibility that sometimes you might not like the content I produce or share. That’s fine, just move along, I won’t take offence.
What’s your UX (user experience) end game?
I dug out and dusted off an old set of slides recently to present to some colleagues on the benefits of taking a truly user centered approach to design and development. The slide below in it’s original form dated from a presentation I gave to a small conference back in 1998 (in ’98 it was Photoshop drawn). Brilliant to dust it off and find it’s still totally relevant (would it ever not be?). It describes the end game, where I strive to get to by adopting a user centered approach.
I get really unhappy with business people who want me to help them deliver business goals with no regard for the UX! I’ve come across this in almost every business I’ve worked in, often from the product owners (which is why this slide get’s dusted off every now and then and I talk them through the benefits of UX).
It’s also a great way to get clients or the business to understand that taking a UX centered approach and delivering a top user experience doesn’t have to compromise their business objectives and is often the best way to deliver them!
Of course, everyone’s approach is different and their aim may differ from mine, so what does your UX end game look like?
